China is World’s Biggest Smartphone Market

China will end this month as the world’s largest smartphone market, with the highest number of active Android and iOS users across smartphones and tablets, as projected by Flurry.

At the end of January, the US held a slight lead with 222m devices compared to 221m in China, but by the end of February, China will be ahead for the first time, with 246m compared to 230m in the States.

China’s vast population (1.3bn people compared to just over 310m) and an expanding middle class with increasing amounts of disposable income mean it is likely to hold this position. India, with a population of just over 1.2bn, is its only likely competitor, however, with only 19m active smart devices in January, ranking it 10th in the world, China is set to remain on top.

At the end of January, the UK was the third largest smartphone population, with 43m devices, followed by South Korea at 30m, Japan at 29m and Germany at 27m.

Flurry tracks the usage of more than 275,000 apps, which is says covers 90 per cent of the world’s smart devices.

Author Description

Kirsty took the leap from the north-west to London in 2011 after securing a comms role working for the mobile marketing start-up Somo. Since September 2012, she has worked as a reporter for Mobile Marketing, writing news and features, appearing in videos and creating podcasts. Kirsty is now something of a 'mobile expert' and is particularly interested in mobile payments, mobile advertising and using mobile for good.
She has completed freelance projects for Wired, Dods, the Observer and Utility Week.